What do Andy Murray, Pippa and Peaches have in common? At Fashion Week they joined... The Front Pew Crew
Elegant: A model on the Temperley runway... but was the audience more interested in the front row?
At a distance, it all looks so amenable, doesnt it? The smiles, the glossy hair, the stiff, elaborately calligraphied invitations clasped firmly in hand.
Ah yes, the Front Row club do like to look so effortlessly sophisticated.
I once heard a fashion designer describe the seating plan at his shows as organic but, believe me, its anything but. The etiquette of who sits where is more carefully choreographed and elitist than any dinner at Downton Abbey.
If you have a standing ticket, you are less than undesirable, probably worse than someone who wasnt invited at all. If you are front row, on the other hand, you have arrived. More importantly, you are seen to have arrived.
Front rows are reserved for editors of magazines (cool fashion ones, not Womans Realm), their fashion directors, buyers from the big stores and, increasingly, celebrity fans of the label. Its a hedonistic mix, with a rigid pecking order you challenge at your own peril.
The advantages of being in the front row? You inevitably get better freebies left on your chair (a one-off box of different Chanel scents was the best I ever got: it came in a cashmere wrap). You get a closer view of the models blisters and thread veins, too, which is always heartening.
You also, occasionally, get to plonk your bones next to a celebrity, which always begs the question whether you should talk to them or not.
I always find it hilarious to watch American Vogue editor Anna Wintour sat next to a rapper in New York she has clearly never! heard o f.
I love it, too, when the (male) photographers at the end of the catwalk start shouting at all these powerful women, telling them to uncross their legs and move the bloody bags because theyre in frame, which always results in a few hot tears that threaten to dislodge the Flutter lash extensions.
What I find striking is that the cast of celebrities changes almost as regularly as the clothes, while the (mainly) women who run the industry reappear, year in, year out, holding on to their gilt chair with such a vice-like grip their knuckles turn white. To be relegated to row two is the fashion equivalent of being culled: your career is over.
But the favour works both ways: if an editor doesnt turn up to her seat (Jo Elvin, editor of Glamour, was a no-show at Vivienne Westwood I know, because I sat in her seat one along from Pamela Anderson) I expect she received a stern phone call the next morning.
In Milan, the front row is taken so seriously, many designers video it. After an Armani show, when I almost fell asleep, I was called by the PR and roundly ticked off for not applauding.
It might be entertaining, but is all this front-row action good for business? While designers will deny paying for celebrity patronage, the stars do not get out of bed in time for a 10am show on a Sunday (the Mulberry slot at Claridges) for a stick of rock. The star either has a contract with the brand, which obliges them to turn up, or is bribed with a free stay in a hotel, first-class flights, clothes and so on.
This practice was started by the late Gianni Versace (the rock star Prince told me he turned up at the show in Paris because the designer put him up in the Ritz). But rather than help the brand, the stars can often be a distraction. I was so excited to be sat front row next to Justin Timberlake at the Oscar de La Renta show, I forgot to look at the clothes.
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After Mulberry, everyone was talking about front-row guests Kate Moss and Kristen Stewart. After Temperley, the next days press was about Pippa Middletons thighs, not the designs.
What with all the frantic Twittering and photo-messaging the moment she arrived, I doubt anyone could tell you even which designer show we were at. Still, it helped it make the next days papers. Never mind the clothes, just look at the column inches.
Where will this front-row fixation end?
At Topshop, in the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo, it was not enough to get a front-row seat. Anna Wintour had her own entrance and exit, too, purely because she does not do escalators. Surely a case of the sublime becoming the ridiculous.
So who was who at the hottest London shows and why were they there? Heres a spotters guide:
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